Help Overclocking a PQ5 and E7400

[BASIQ]

I have a PQ5 Motherboard and an E7400 C2D and I want to overclock. I am a computer technician and I know my way around computers extremely well, but overclocking is new to me. I am learning hardware terms and types as fast as I can, but on this overclocking, I wanted some member input before I go and turn my processor into a melted slush.

Can someone tell me what I would need to do, and whats the most I could expect to gain out of this setup. I am able fill any requests for information and I would be happy to answer any questions.

Everything a body would need to know is posted below.

Processor Information

Motherboard Information

BIOS screens
http://i29.tinypic.com/296klj9.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/23kuqv4.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/oggdoz.jpg
http://i29.tinypic.com/2v953eh.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/2chrwwj.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/1zgfewn.jpg
http://i27.tinypic.com/ng2icx.jpg
http://i31.tinypic.com/5u1itt.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/mikob9.jpg

and some information on my bios
BIOS Type: AMI
BIOS Version: 0703

My aftermarket cpu cooler is this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134

My computer case is this [if it matters]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068

My System Information is as follows

Hopefully you can tell I am serious about this and regardless of what I get for responses, I plan on attempting to overclock anyways, so any help would be awesome, as I am a 100% noob on overclocking
and one more thing, if you specify something like "change your FSB" or "increase your voltage" please supply some simple instructions on how to do whatever it is you are suggesting, as the bios is one place I do not have extensive knowledge. [lol, and I would rather not be constantly rebooting... =P]

 

[OvrClkr]

hehe....

read this first and I will answer your questions later :

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

 

[BASIQ]

My gawd, gimme some slack here, I am new to overclocking and I really don't want to have to digest that whole massively confusing thread. Can't someone who is very well versed in this give me some pointers.

Hell, a few "go here" and "Do this's" would be epic.
I am not trying to sound ungrateful, but I have been reading threads all day, and so many of them are "Almost" what I need, but never quite there. None of them cover my bios and ALL of them are over my head...

Thanks!

 

[0ptic0n]

Any specific speed you looking to reach? Also what kind of ram do you have. Board i have is p5q pro is this what you have as well?

 

[BASIQ]

Nope, don't have the pro and I am not sure what the difference is. As for what speed am I looking to reach, to be completely honest, I have never OC'd but I want to. I don't have a speed I am looking to achieve, I am just better at learning by "doing" so I want to "do" to learn. I hope you understand.

For the first time, I really was looking forward to simple instructions and a personalized guide. I would then take my knowledge and the guide and go learn by myself via research. I just need a simple jump start.

I know I am sounding kinda demanding and high maintenance, but I really do prefer to learn from research, instead of making posts in forums asking for specific help. This is the first step towards my learning experience. I am just in need of a jumpstart.

Thanks!

 

[0ptic0n]

Ok Maybe this will get you going first disable cpu q-fan control so that cpu fan runs wide open the fan you have isnt loud at max speed anyway follow this link for bios location.

Heres a pic you might can use as reference of some sort but dont follow the oc settings settings.

Next go to the ai tweaker tab in bios and change the following settings
1.Set Ai Overclock Tuner to manual
2.Fsb Frequency set to 325 this will give you a oc up to 3.4ghz 325x10.5 = 3412.5MHZ
3.PCIE Frequency set at 100
4.DRAM Frequency Change to whatever speed your ram is rated to run at if the option for your speed isnt their pick one that is below so it doesnt oc ram
5.Dram Timing Leave on Auto
6.Leave All voltage settings to Auto at least until your more into the work of things the higher the oc less dependable auto setting is for cpu voltage.

If the pics from your first post are correct then i assume you have disabled the cpu power saving features such as speedstep and c1e. I see no reason why the cpu you have would not boot and do fine for any of those settings but in the event it doesnt boot try a lower fsb frequency. Or check to make sure your not running ram out of spec under dram frequency

 

[OvrClkr]

That thread is not confusing at all, the reason I stated you read first is due to the fact that if you are new to overclocking I would rather have you read first and get an idea of how the whole process works, then once you are familiar with the basics you can start overclocking in increments.... You should know this since you stated that you are a computer tech....

I guess opticon already covered what I was about to post....

 

[alikum]

I have the same processor, perhaps I could help. I am running at 3.5GHz (10.5x333) with 1.29375V. Perhaps you could use my setting and run a stability test and if successful, slowly scale it down. E7400 is an insane overclocking chip, it can take almost everything you dish out at it. But bear in mind that you will have to adjust DRAM ratio.

 

[lucuis]

You should expect some pretty good results from that processor, it's quite the overclocker. You do have to be willing to do some research though. The Guide OverClkr posted is not very long at all, and has some useful info for first timers. If you haven't already i'd suggest reading it, it can't be more then a couple thousand words.

Hell, a few "go here" and "Do this's" would be epic.
I am not trying to sound ungrateful, but I have been reading threads all day, and so many of them are "Almost" what I need, but never quite there. None of them cover my bios and ALL of them are over my head...

That's exactly what OvrClkr did, he gave you a resource to learn the basiqs. <--Sorry, had to Perhaps this thread might be useful, it's fairly detailed about overclocking with the P5 series mobo from Asus. You may have read it already. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249352-29-overclocking-asus-series All BIOSs for the Core2 line and similar, are all very similar. Perhaps some different terminology for the same stuff. But a quick specific google search should explain a particular BIOS option. Sometimes even the Mobo manual has some good stuff in it. Either way, we can't help you much if you can't understand what we're saying. So unfortunately you get to do some more reading.

Nope, don't have the pro and I am not sure what the difference is. As for what speed am I looking to reach, to be completely honest, I have never OC'd but I want to. I don't have a speed I am looking to achieve, I am just better at learning by "doing" so I want to "do" to learn. I hope you understand.

The difference between the Pro and the P5Q is a couple features, the BIOS should be identical. Unfortunately doing without knowing in this case could break something.

For the first time, I really was looking forward to simple instructions and a personalized guide. I would then take my knowledge and the guide and go learn by myself via research. I just need a simple jump start.

Our instructions have been simple, at least i think so. Also a personal guide usually costs money, but a little digging could find you a thread that meets your needs. What we are trying to get at is you questions need to be much more specific, like if you get stumped while overclocking. We aren't going to write you a comprehensive guide to overclocking in your situation, especially since each processor behaves differently, and because there's so many guides out there that will teach you how. You have to feel your way yourself, or you'll have even more questions later.

I know I am sounding kinda demanding and high maintenance, but I really do prefer to learn from research, instead of making posts in forums asking for specific help. This is the first step towards my learning experience. I am just in need of a jumpstart.

Then get movin' I'll be glad to help when you don't have anymore questions like "How do i overclock."

We don't mean to be rude, we want to help. Just don't want to practically do it for you either, that's no fun.

 

[OvrClkr]

Yea im sorry, it was not my intention to sound rude. It's hard trust me... many have asked the same question as you and I ended up having to explain for days till the person got it..... I learned by reading, reading alot and the asking questions later, trust me I had many questions and thanks to many including Lucuis, overshocked, videl and MANY more I have an OVERLOAD of info. Of course all of this was only possible because of this website. Anyways let us know if you need anything and we will help you, but please read. Hehe, the more you know the better!!!!!

 

[BASIQ]

Well, I tried everything 0ptic0n recommended, loaded the OS fine, then it froze. So I rebooted, froze again, so I turned the FSB to 315 and manually set the CPU Ratio to 8.0. It did not freeze immediately, though the mouse had stopped working oddly enough. but after about 2 min it did.

Becoming frustrated, I went and did a bios reset. and dam, it STILL froze. So I rebuild my OS on a new hdd on the same system. Installed XP Pro, then added SP2 and SP3. Its a fresh build and it STILL freezes. I am very distraught at the instability I can not explain. Its all back to the way it was. Whats wrong?

Any suggestions would be capital. And if I can get through this, I still want to try out all the instructions given to me. But the lack of stability makes me think I fried something and the system locking up is kinda not ignorable so... Hope not, but if so, I guess its the cost of learning.

Thanks for all the awesome replies, and I await your responses!
-BASiQ

 

[lucuis]

Did you follow the manual's instructions on resetting the BIOS to factory defaults. If not, try that to be sure it reset properly.

Freezing generally is cause by CPU instability or a dying motherboard, crashing can be related to multiple things but it's commonly RAM.

I'm hoping the reset just didn't take properly. Also did you happen to get temps from your experiments?

 

[OvrClkr]

Did you write down or save the settings when you crashed initially?

What are your RAM timings and voltage?

 

[0ptic0n]

Did you write down or save the settings when you crashed initially?

What are your RAM timings and voltage?

Agreed would be interesting to see what dram frequency was selected running ram out of spec can cause the sudden freeze that's being described but that will usually happen after post or while booting windows dropping cpu ratio down to 8 isn't going to help. A higher multiplier makes overclocking easier because its less strenuous on the chip-set.

Hmm he said he followed the instructions I posted and in one of those pics it shows the cpu ratio at 8x. Then he tried an 8x ratio on his don't use any of those settings for your oc. I only posted that as reference so that you could see the type of settings that are typically changed in the bios you have, the only setting from the pics you should change is the one that manages fan speeds. In those other pics the values are for different hardware that may not apply at all to what you have.

 

[BASIQ]

This is what I did.

1.Set Ai Overclock Tuner to manual
2.Fsb Frequency set to 325
3.PCIE Frequency set at 100
4.DRAM Frequency left at auto, because my RAM is 333 and its lowest was way higher.
5.Dram Timing Leave on Auto
6.Leave All voltage settings to Auto

and then I changed 2 settings
FSB to 315
and CPU Ratio to 8x.

I did not follow your image of the BiOS as you said not to, but since you did not give me a cpu ratio, I just thought I would give yours a try.

I am still having random freezing after a manual bios reset. I checked everything I could think of. But OC'ing does things I don't usually encounter to hardware so it could be anything.

According to Everest my CPU is running at 32c at idle and its peaking at 43c at 100% CPU. I ran it at 100 for about 5 min and it never exceeded 43. [Running 2 Ultimate compression 7Zip compressions together]

I then ran the Everest system stress test on CPU only. and the CPU peaked at 47c and stayed there for 3 min so I stopped. All together it ran it for 5 min. The system seems stable enough, except for the random freezing.

Running memtest now to see if it comes up with anything.

 

[BASIQ]

Ran dual memtests on 745mb and they both went to 120%. 20 min time. Showing 0 errors.

 

[OvrClkr]

20 min is not going to do anything, at least test your ram for several hours.....

If you test for 20 min it is most likely that you will see 0 errors since the begining of the test starts out weak....Your PC should not freeze at all during the test unless you have 1 or more defective modules.

 

[BASIQ]

Well, this is assuming it IS the ram. I agree it could be, but I am not so sure it is. Though you have more experience in this then I so, so if you think it is the ram, I will tun a ramtest through the night.

One question though. The ram test wanted me to do multiple simultaneous scans instead of one big ones, hence the 745mb test. So, if I am going to be spending hours on a test, how do I make it so I only have to run one test.

Also, just now, the system, downloading windows updates locked up again. I see the OS, the system keeps running like normal, but nothing works. Windows updates froze, mouse and kbd dont work. Its starting to piss me off that everything is back to normal and I STILL get this.. I must of done something wrong, but I just dont know what.

 

[OvrClkr]

It's most likely a RAM issue, once you have memtested the RAM for several hours you should get some errors, it can be in the middle of the test or at the end. If it is not the ram then we would have to check other parts and troubleshoot.

As far as the test goes it will do multiple tests in different areas of the modules, that is normal operation... Just leave it alone for at least 3-4 hours and you should be fine.

 

[BASIQ]

Ok, one more question. After research online your perfect wisdom seems to be correct. Ram is the most common culprit of this issue. My question though is I need a test to test and tell me which stick is back. I have 4 1GB sticks. and I cant afford to replace them all at once.

Any ideas?
Thanks!

PS: The main thing that prompted the research was the immaculately clean Event Viewer... Obviously something getting a jump on the OS outside of the debugger.

 

[mindless728]

well, you could test them one at a time with memtest, then you would know which one is bad

 

[BASIQ]

Yeah, well that sounds like 8 hours... As from what I can tell, 2 hours is a good test time. But I kinda don't have 8 hours... I don't know... I guess I could, just asking if someone has an app to test each all at once.

 

[OvrClkr]

Yea mindless is correct, you have to test each module individually and see which one is defective, but before you do that make sure you test all 4 sticks first to make sure the RAM is the issue, then you can test them individually. Another thing you can do is return all 4 sticks if you find any errors and that way you get a fresh set.

 

[BASIQ]

Cant return them, system is over the return limit and I don't think I can just RMA 4 modules since only one is bad... Also, I am 98% sure its the ram... I think I will skip step one and do each stick, that way IF it was the ram, I already know which stick.

Mainly I think its the ram because the OS is new [so its not driver conflict] and upon crashing I am getting nothing. No BSD, no Error Events, nothing. Also, I ran checkdick on the HDD twice to be sure, nothing. Also, the cpu is running cool so its not a heat issue. All that leaves is the PSU, GPU and the RAM and there is no way in hell I can afford another GPU so it BETTER not be that.... Not that any of the other hardware is truly excluded, but initial testing can only do so much when one does not have tons of money to throw at it.

At least in the meantime I still have this laptop... I guess here goes 8 hours... Movie time.

Edit: One more question, how much is the recommended time for running the memtest per stick?

 

[lucuis]

You don't have to do it all in one sitting if you don't want to. Also in my experiences freezing has always been the CPU or Motherboard, usually involving the CPU socket. So be prepared.

Couple hours per stick would probably be sufficient per stick. More is always better though, just to be sure.

I wish you luck.